The great internet movie rip-off

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Almost every film released by The Walt Disney Co. in the past year or so, from Finding Nemo to Pirates of the Caribbean to King Arthur, surfaced on the internet for illegal downloading within two days of cinema release, company executives said this week.

But even more alarming is the speed with which a version of DreamWorks Shrek 2 was found online: in five hours. While the initial online version was of poor quality, a clean video version of the film dubbed in French could be downloaded within 14 hours of theatrical release.

"The problem is very much global," said Jeff Mirich, senior vice-president and chief information officer of Walt Disney Pictures and Television. "We are stacking the sandbags but the tide is rising."

Mirich was a speaker at an anti-piracy forum in Hollywood on Monday, sharing recent research, which painted a sobering picture of how quickly piracy - aided by the latest technology - continues to escalate worldwide.

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The availability of separate downloads of audio tracks, to be combined with video secretly taped inside a movie theatre with a camcorder, has eliminated the ambient sound found on early bootlegs.

Further complicating the problem is the sophistication in which some piracy rings sell their goods over the internet, with many consumers oblivious to the fact that they are buying a pirated movie.